Is your baby already enjoying the snacks you serve him? Step by step you can replace the milk feeds with meals, but: everything in its own time. And in addition to food, your baby still needs milk. What does a feeding schedule for a 7 month old baby look like?
You have probably tried all kinds of food products with your 7-month-old baby by now. But just when your baby has to get used to it, it’s suddenly puzzling for you too. When he only needed breast or bottle feeding, you knew he was getting all the necessary nutrients. Now you need to think about carbohydrates, proteins, fiber and vitamins. If you have prepared a healthy meal for him with the best of intentions, it may also be that he no longer wants to eat after two bites. As with so many children’s things, patience is the motto.
A feeding schedule can also provide guidance. Although one baby needs more food than the other, and this can also differ slightly per day. The feeding schedule for a 7-month-old baby in this article is therefore an indication. If in doubt, always ask the consultation office for advice.
Knowing more: This is what the feeding schedules look like until your child is 1 year old
Baby 7 months: eat solid food
From six months, your child needs solid food in addition to breast or artificial food. But the bottle or breast will not go off the menu immediately: a 7-month-old baby still gets about 500 milliliters of milk, spread over the day. For example, you can give a sandwich for breakfast, but he will also drink a few bottles or breast milk per day. You can now also give your baby a healthy snack now and then, in addition to the meal(s) he already eats.
How much solid food can your baby eat now?
Your 7-month-old baby is now quite used to solid food. Especially if you have already started giving practice snacks at 4 months. Only when he is about one year old will he start eating with the pot, but you are now gradually replacing breast or bottle feeding with meals.
You will gradually discover how much your child eats. Don’t compare it to other babies of his age: every child learns to eat at his own pace. So see what your baby needs and trust your own insight. If your baby develops well, has six wet diapers a day and is cheerful and energetic, then you can assume that he gets what he needs.
Do you doubt whether your baby is getting enough nutrients? They can watch with you at the consultation office. For example, ask what a feeding schedule for your baby should look like according to the consultation office. If your child goes to the nursery, they can also think along with you.
Read also: What if your baby won’t eat?
What can your 7 month old baby eat (not yet)?
Give your baby healthy, preferably fresh and unprocessed products without added sugars and salt. You can give your baby most healthy food products, such as: fruit, vegetables, bread or a bread crust, egg and peanut butter, pasta or rice. But there are a few things babies shouldn’t eat just yet. Think of: regular milk, raw egg, raw meat and raw fish, cheese, liver spread or liver pâté, honey and sweet drinks. Of course, do not give your baby hard pieces of solid food or products that pose a risk of choking, such as grapes, nuts or cherry tomatoes.
Read more: What babies shouldn’t eat and why not
What snacks can a 7 month old baby eat?
You can also give your baby an occasional snack. Although there are all kinds of special baby biscuits for sale, it is better to ignore them. They contain hardly any nutrients, but a lot of sugar and that is not healthy (even if vitamins have been added to the baby biscuit). The best snacks are fruits and vegetables. You can also give, for example, a whole wheat breadstick, a bread crust, a little cottage cheese or occasionally a rice cake.
Important: read here why it is not healthy to give your baby a rice cake every day.
Learn to chew and swallow
You can give your baby food after 7 months that has a firmer texture, so less mashed. This way he can get used to a coarser structure and chewing. That is something your child really needs to learn. This starts when he has no molars yet. He has to move the (soft!) piece of food to the side in his mouth, crush it with his jaws and tongue, and then swallow it. If he doesn’t get the piece to the side properly, he may retch. This is because in babies the gag reflex is still in front of the tongue. By eating solid food, this reflex moves to the back of the mouth.
You can give your 7 month old baby a bread crust as a snack. By sucking and ‘chewing’ on it, he trains his mouth muscles. Never leave your baby alone while eating, so that you can intervene immediately if he chokes or gets a piece stuck in his throat.
Read also: What should you do in case of choking and suffocation?
The Rapley method: coarser pieces with the hands
Once you notice that your baby is used to mashed food, you can also get him used to coarser pieces of food. You can do this using the Rapley method. Instead of feeding him pureed food, give him pieces that he can pick up with his hands and eat. With this method, your baby will learn to eat at his own pace. He decides for himself whether he is ready for solid food, and also decides how much he wants to eat. For example, give your baby pieces of cooked broccoli or carrot, and of course never leave your baby alone when he is eating. Read all about the Rapley method here.
How many grams of fruit and vegetables can your baby eat now?
Exactly how many grams of vegetables a 7-month-old baby should eat differs per child and also per day. On average, this is 100 grams of vegetables with an evening meal that replaces the milk feed, but you can also give a vegetable snack as a snack. For example, some pieces of steamed sweet potato, or mashed cauliflower or carrot. Build it up slowly and see what your child needs.
The same applies to fruit as to vegetables. In general, babies naturally like sweet tastes, so they have less time to get used to the flavors of fruit. A fruit snack of, for example, three tablespoons of mashed banana, kiwi, peach or boiled apple per day is sufficient when your baby is 7 months old.
Read more: How much fruit and vegetables should a child eat
Taste development
Does your baby make funny faces when he first tastes a new fruit or vegetable? That doesn’t necessarily mean he doesn’t like it. Because your baby has a small tongue, there are relatively many taste buds on a small surface. That makes the taste experience more intense than with adults, so that he can react violently to a taste.
Read also: This way you teach your baby to get used to new flavors
How much milk for a 7 month old baby?
At 7 months, your baby still needs about 500 milliliters of milk per day. If your baby is bottle-fed, give follow-on milk now. You give this spread over the day. How many bottles your 7-month-old baby needs also depends on how many meals of solid food he already eats. For example, you can give three bottles a day, as in the feeding schedule for a 7-month-old baby at the bottom of this article. But you can also try to give some follow-on milk in a cup with the meal.
You can continue to breastfeed on request. The composition of your breast milk adapts to your baby’s needs, and that need will automatically decrease if your child eats more solid food.
Please note: do not replace bottle or breast milk with cow’s milk. Until your baby is one year old, it is better not to give him cow’s milk. It contains more protein than bottle and breast milk and that can be harmful to your baby’s kidneys. In addition, breast milk or follow-on milk is better suited to your baby’s needs in terms of composition.
Read also: Is your baby outgrowing a cow’s milk allergy?
Learn to drink from a cup
You can already practice drinking from a cup with your 7-month-old baby. A good time to try this out is when your baby can sit up independently. For example, let him drink sips of water or lukewarm tea from an open cup with the fruit snack. He doesn’t have to be able to hold and drink this by himself, it’s purely about getting used to and practicing. Hold the cup in front of him while he takes sips from it. Babies do not learn to drink independently from a cup until they are between 8 and 12 months old, and that does not always go smoothly during the first two years.
Read more: Spout cup or open cup, which is better?
How much bread can your baby
Eating a sandwich starts with small pieces. One 7-month-old baby needs a crust of bread, while another can eat a whole sandwich. In any case, give your baby light brown bread, so that his intestines can get used to the amount of fiber. From 8 months you can opt for wholemeal bread.
As soon as bread becomes a meal – and therefore replaces a dairy diet – you can also put toppings on it in addition to margarine. For example 100% peanut butter or mashed avocado, strawberries or banana.
Read more: Everything about your baby’s first sandwich and toppings
7 month baby feeding schedule
Please note: this feeding schedule is an example, so the times are an indication. Of course you don’t have to follow the feeding schedule exactly. Pay special attention to your child’s needs.
| Bottle feeding | Breastfeeding | Solid food |
| Number of bottle feedings per day: 2 to 3 (150-200 ml) | Replace more and more power supplies with solid food. The bottle feeding schedule is a good indication. | Give your child some porridge or bread and fruit for breakfast. |
| Quantity of milk: approximately 500 ml spread over the day. | Your baby may occasionally have a snack, such as a breadstick or some mashed vegetables or fruit. | |
| Give your baby some vegetables with potato or rice for dinner. |
Example feeding schedule per day:
| Time | Power supply | Nap |
| 07.00 | 200 ml formula and breakfast | 1 hour |
| 09.30 | fruit snack | |
| 11.30 | solid snack/sandwich and water | 2 o’clock |
| 14.30 | 100 ml formula (you can reduce) | |
| 17.30 | solid food and water | |
| 18.30 | 200 ml bottle feeding | 7:00 p.m. to bed |
| Number of hours of sleep during the day: 3 hours | ||
| Number of hours of sleep at night: 12 o’clock | ||
Important: read here why your baby is not allowed honey on his bread yet.
Bron: Voedingscentrum.nl
2023-06-05 09:41:13
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